In the New Enchanted Forest, Dr. Facilier lives as a traveling soothsayer. At some point, he ends up being trapped, "with one foot in this world and one in a less pleasant place". To free himself, he needs the magical Firefly Ruby, which is owned by Eudora's daughter Tiana since her husband's death. Knowing their financial difficulties, and their need for a prince to save them from ruin, Facilier captures a frog couple and turns the male one into a man, forcing him to act as a prince if he wants to be reunited with his frog lover. Then, Facilier sends the frog-turned-man Robert, now posing as Prince Marias, to a tavern called The Crimson Crow. ("Greenbacks")

Hoping to discover where she will find a prince, Princess Tiana heads into the tent alley where Facilier has set up shop, searching for him, but is surrounded by its poor inhabitants, begging her for help. Dr. Facilier emerges, chasing the people away and welcoming Tiana into his shop. Although she doesn't tell him why she has come to see him, he is already aware of her search for a prince to save her kingdom. He offers his services for free and assures her that she will find her prince if she follows the red crow. Overjoyed, Tiana leaves, eventually meeting Robert at The Crimson Crow, but she eventually uncovers the truth and Facilier's ulterior motives. With some encouragement from her mother, Tiana brings the Firefly Ruby to Dr. Facilier herself in exchange for the other frog's freedom. They briefly battle, Dr. Facilier using a doll to inflict pain on Tiana, but the ruby seems to take its effect and Dr. Facilier teleports away, leaving Tiana to reunite Robert and his frog lover. ("Greenbacks")

The day of Tiana's coronation, Dr. Facilier pays her a visit. He briefly greets Regina and informs an apprehensive Tiana that he means no harm, only to use his tarot cards to read her future, telling her that before she can receive her crown, she will face a test in which a terrible beast will threaten the peace of her entire kingdom. Although Tiana believes he is lying, he directs her to the Fairy Docks at the southern edge of the bayou to see evidence that he is not. There, Taian finds proof a massive alligator is on the loose in her kingdom. Facilier hopes that Tiana will be able to slay the beast, as it has swallowed a necklace that belonged to Regina and he wishes to return it to her. Once the alligator is dead, Facilier appears at the bank in front of Tiana and a dying Naveen, who was attacked by the alligator. He teleports the necklace out of the alligator's corpse then informs her that, since Naveen has already passed on, there will be a great price if he uses his power to revive him. Tiana insists that, since she killed the alligator and regained the necklace for him, she owes him nothing, and Facilier agrees. However, after Naveen recovers, Facilier teleports him to a place where Tiana will never find him, explaining to her that, although she paid the price by getting the necklace back, Naveen also owed him, seeing as it was his life. Tiana angrily tells Facilier that she will find Naveen, but Facilier remains unconvinced as he teleports away. ("A Taste of the Heights")

Later, as Tiana leaves to meet her subjects, joined by Henry, Ella, and Killian, Regina lingers behind, calling out to Facilier, who is hidden on the balcony. They briefly banter, vaguely referring to their past, and Facilier returns Regina's necklace to her. When asked about his intentions, Facilier states that he missed his queen, and the two passionately kiss. ("A Taste of the Heights")

Later, Facilier visits the Dark One, Mr. Gold, at the Cave of the Departed as he is talking to his dead wife. He tells Mr. Gold that he has asked Belle if the Guardian is Alice and offers to take his power for himself. Facilier conjures a voodoo doll and stabs it, hoping to kill Mr. Gold but it does not work. Mr. Gold, astonished that the man thought pushing a needle into a doll would hurt him, magically chokes Facilier and tortures him into telling him what Belle said. Facilier responds that the only surefire way to know if Alice is the Guardian is to test her and that he must hurry because Belle fears that without her by his side to guide him, he will succumb back to the darkness. Mr. Gold realizes what he is saying is true as he notices his skin is becoming scaly again and he drops Facilier, who insists he better hope Alice is the Guardian or he'll be there to steal the dagger from him for good. At Facilier's tent home, Alice enters, having been sent by Mr. Gold who persuaded her that Facilier is the key to curing her father's cursed heart. When Facilier catches her snooping around, Mr. Gold teleports in, and as planned, Alice rips out the witch doctor's heart. Mr. Gold tells Alice the only way to cure her father is to crush his heart, to which Facilier laughs at this lie and remarks that he is the test for the person Mr. Gold is seeking. Alice wonders what Facilier means, but she is soon persuaded by Mr. Gold into commanding the witch doctor to stop talking. When pressured to begin squeezing the heart, Alice is unable to do it and shoves the heart back into Facilier's chest as she runs out of the tent. ("The Guardian")

To eliminate Gothel as his competition for the Dark One Dagger, which Samdi wishes to have for himself, he wakes up Nick to make him remember his past life as Hansel and his hatred for all witches, in order to jumpstart him into killing Gothel. ("Chosen")

With ambitions of obtaining something that he believes Sabine can eventually help him get, Samdi recruits Sabine's old cooking classmate, Drew, into a scheme to gain the woman's trust. Following Victoria's untimely death, Samdi returns to Hyperion Heights, where he stops by Roni's in search of the owner. His presence seemingly causes the lights to malfunction, disturbing Henry, who informs Samdi that Roni is not around and offers to take a message. Samdi gives him his card and asks him to give it to Roni and leaves, mentioning that he will help her fix her electricity. ("A Taste of the Heights")

Roni, actually the cursed counterpart of Regina, and Kelly, her sister, realize that Samdi is Dr. Facilier and fear that he may be awake. To determine if this is the case, they plot to pull a switch, with Kelly pretending to be Roni and vice versa, to see how he reacts. When Samdi arrives at the bar, Kelly introduces herself as Roni and he seemingly buys it. When he offers to help them, she tells him that her sister is not interested, and Roni, pretending to be Kelly, emerges. Samdi encourages them to contact him if they change their minds. Meanwhile, Drew sets up a food truck at a fair in Hyperion Heights, while Samdi rigs the game by dropping an anonymous tip to a police officer about Sabine's missing food safety permit, which puts her out of the running as Drew's competition. Later, after Drew gives his safety permit to Sabine and helps her with her food truck at the fair, Samdi approaches him when he is alone and comments on how well he's done to gain Sabine's trust. Drew doesn't want to continue with the deception though Samdi insists he will. Although Kelly is convinced that Facilier is under the curse, Roni realizes he isn't and pays him a visit at his apartment. They both acknowledge that the other is awake and Samdi invites Roni inside. Roni at first refuses, but when Samdi taunts her and walks away, leaving the door open, she relents, closing the door behind her. ("A Taste of the Heights")

Suspicious of Samdi's true intentions, Roni plots with Lucy as part of Operation Hyacinth to sneak into his apartment. To accomplish this, Roni distracts Samdi by asking him out on a date but secretly puts tape over his latch so that Lucy can sneak in after they leave. Their date is interrupted by Kelly, who overhears Samdi calling Roni by her real name and realizes they lied to her. Samdi excuses himself to allow the sisters time to talk, despite Roni's attempts to stop him, and heads back home. When he arrives, Lucy is still inside hiding under the desk, but she escapes apparently without being noticed by him. However, Samdi later finds a hat she left behind and brings it to Roni. When Roni reveals that Lucy found the death card in Samdi's tarot deck, Samdi willingly informs her that he has it because he plans to kill Weaver for the Dark One's Dagger and its powers. Roni insists she will not let him get away with that, and Samdi informs her that, if she plays her cards right, there is a great romance in her future. Before he departs from the bar, he encourages her to take a page from her old mentor, Weaver, and find a way to have everything she wants. ("The Girl in the Tower")

At the bar, Samdi approaches Ivy with a drink but she declines and tells him she is not looking for company. He says her troubled mood is exactly why he means to help her and then calls her by her real name, Drizella, before using a set of facedown cards on the table to read what her future entails. Samdi introduces herself to him, but she expresses no interest in what he has to offer, though she is surprised when he makes note of her near death at the hands of the Candy Killer. As he flips over each tarot card, he persuades her that the killer will continue coming after her and she can trust no one but herself to decide her own fate, as even Roni's promise to protect her is not guaranteed because Henry is her primary concern. Samdi offers her a magic bean to escape to another realm, but it requires her sister Anastasia's magic and she can either sacrifice her sister to save herself or let her sister die under Gothel's control. Ivy questions how she is even supposed to find Anastasia after days of searching for her with no success and Samdi provides a facedown card, telling her it will bring Anastasia to her. She then flips the card over to look at it, which has a picture of Anastasia with the lit lanterns that she and her sister once bonded over as children. Little does Ivy know, the tarot reading Samdi gave her was not completely true and Anastasia was never fated to die, and Samdi lied to her in order to siphon some of Anastasia's magic for his own purposes. ("Sisterhood")

After Ivy brings an unconscious Anastasia to Samdi, the witch doctor extracts some of the girl's magic into a bottle. He prepares to perform the rest of the ritual, which Ivy believes involves having to kill Anastasia, but Gothel interrupts them by waking up the girl. As Anastasia's wrath gives way to a storm, Samdi advises Ivy to do what she must do before he flees. Later after Ivy and Anastasia reconcile and leave for another realm, Roni returns to her bar to find Samdi waiting for her. She is upset at him for preying on Ivy, but he states he simply did what he had to and got what he wanted. He shows her the bottle of Anastasia's magic and explains he left Ivy with her sister so they could work out their differences just as the cards told him they would. Sensing Weaver has convinced her that he is up to no good, he reveals Anastasia was never going to die and he just needed some of her magic. He surprises Roni by giving her the bottled magic and insists she uses it to find a way to save Henry. Roni asks what is the price for his gift, and Samdi assures her that her beautiful smile is all he wants. However, what Samdi doesn't tell Roni is that he pocketed some of the magic for himself. Upon leaving the bar to get to his car, Samdi is confronted by Weaver, who warns him against attempting to get his dagger or suffer the same fate as those who have tried. Samdi cautions that Weaver's actions will only serve to keep him apart from Belle. In turn, Weaver insists if Samdi interferes with his family, he will find a loophole to end him for good. ("Sisterhood", "The Guardian")

At an unknown point in time, Samdi wakes up Drew, making him remember his past life as Prince Naveen. Samdi comes to the food truck while Sabine is away getting her "secret ingredient" to add to her beignet batter mix and intimidates Drew into fulfilling the debt he still owes him. That night, Drew gives him a freshly baked beignet he made himself, though he doesn't understand why the witch doctor specifically wanted one from him when he could've gotten one from Sabine. Samdi explains Sabine trusted Drew enough to teach him how to make the beignets, and that while trust is a powerful thing, breaking that trust is even more so. As Samdi takes the beignet out and taps some of its sprinkled sugar onto a voodoo doll, seemingly imbuing it with magic, Drew insists he doesn't care what Samdi is up to as long as their ties are severed now that his debt to him is fulfilled. Samdi disagrees, stating they are done when he says so and warns him against having to remind him again. Later, Samdi visits Nick in the interrogation room after his arrest and reveals himself as the one who woke Nick up in the first place, in the hopes he would get rid of Gothel. Nick wants another chance to kill Gothel, but Samdi laments that the opportunity has passed since he was caught by the police and now he is too much of a wild card that he needs to be taken out of the deck. Pricking the voodoo doll, Samdi kills Nick, causing him to have severe chest pains until he collapses dead over the table. ("Chosen")

After Nick is found dead and the Dark One's dagger goes missing, Weaver tells Roni of his suspicions that Samdi is responsible. Roni confronts him in his office, and Samdi admits to her that he killed Nick, but when she pointedly asks him to return the dagger if he has it, he states he never took it. Roni chooses to believe him and soon takes her leave, while Weaver arrives to threaten Samdi with a loaded gun as he still thinks he is lying. Once again, Samdi reminds him of how committing a dark deed will only drive him away from Belle, leading Weaver to ultimately not pull the trigger. Samdi then tells him that the next time he threatens him, he should follow through with it. With a wave of his hand, he teleports Weaver back to his own car, further angering the detective. ("The Guardian")

As Samdi is working in his office, he stops to check his phone when Lucy pops in and correctly deducts that Roni is not returning his calls. She tells him what went down between Roni and Weaver, with the latter having stolen the only bit of magic Roni had in order to locate the dagger, and now Roni is busy searching for another way to cure Henry. Lucy suggests if he gave Roni magic before, he can do it again, though Samdi has none left as magic in this land is very hard to come by. The girl ponders how grateful Roni would be if he helped save Henry or how upset Roni would be if she told her that Samdi refused to help. Humored by Lucy's attempt to blackmail him, Samdi agrees to help on the condition that she bring him an item that came over with the curse and which symbolizes the love between her parents. Samdi encourages her to do what she can as he too wishes for the curse to be broken if they are to survive the coven of witches who are gathering in Hyperion Heights. After Lucy procures one of Cinderella's glass slippers, Samdi instructs her to return to her parents after he has completed the ritual and ensure that they break the curse with true love's kiss. He then crushes the slipper to make the shards fly into the voodoo doll before the shards travel into Henry's body to dissolve the poison in his heart. ("Flower Child")

After Gothel brings magic to Hyperion Heights, Samdi looks out the window from inside his office and observes the storm brewing outside. He is annoyed when Sabine and Jacinda arrive and tells them visiting hours are over, but Sabine accuses him of being up to more than backing beignet wars. Jacinda presents the tarot card that Lucy found in a bag that Drew once used, and Sabine demands to know what Samdi has done with him. Samdi directs them to his closet, which the women open and discovers Drew tied up inside. He orders them to get in the closet as well, however, Sabine protests, he stabs a needle into a voodoo doll to hurt her knee. As Sabine gasps in pain, Jacinda pulls her into the closet with her as to not further worsen the situation before Samdi locks them in. ("Is This Henry Mills?")

After Fifth Curse

After Henry breaks the Dark Curse, Samdi is still in office when Sabine, Jacinda, and Drew break out of the closet to confront him. As the women move to strike him with their makeshift weapons, he teleports away to avoid their attacks. Later, Samdi discovers Weaver in the office after he opens a drawer to find the book of his and Belle's memories. Weaver, furious that Samdi stole the book from him, magically chokes him, but upon remembering Belle, he drops his hold on the man. Samdi laughs at him and mocks him, stating that his quest to reunite with his beloved has made him into the worst version of himself. As Samdi begins saying something else, he is suddenly stabbed in the back before he falls dead to the ground, with his killer revealed to be Wish Realm Rumplestiltskin, who disagrees with what the witch doctor said and insists he is the worst version of himself. ("Is This Henry Mills?")

Character Notes

Production Notes

According to Lana Parrilla, Season Seven was supposed to have a backstory to the relationship between Dr. Facilier and Regina, but plans changed because it was announced that the season would be the last one.[2]

See also

References

↑@regalparrillas (gabby ✨) on Twitter. "About her under developed relationship with Facilier: the direction changed bc it was the last season. There was a back story to their relationship but things seg-wayed." (screenshot)